What the Parade Will Pass By

When George and Barbara Bush set out from the Capitol in their new $600,000 armored limousine for today’s inaugural march, they’ll travel a much-transformed Pennsylvania Avenue.

As they near the parade’s end and turn toward the White House, they’ll view the crown jewel of the avenue’s $1.5-billion renovation, the Willard Hotel, the once vacant Beaux-Arts hotel that was restored to its original opulence and reopened in 1986.

The hotel and a host of other buildings and parks are among the major new sights that have swept Pennsylvania Avenue since 1961, when President John F. Kennedy rode the boulevard for his inaugural and saw a historic street so battered, filthy and dreary that he demanded that it be rebuilt to an image befitting America’s Main Street.

It has taken almost 30 years, more than $1.5 billion and the efforts of a public agency working with private developers to fulfill Kennedy’s demand.

But now, gone are the shuttered shops, saloons and cheap hotels. New parks and lights, as well as restorations of historic buildings, have given Pennsylvania Avenue a clean, expensive look on the inaugural parade route. When the Bushes set out today on that path, stretching from the Capitol to the White House, to their right will be the newly completed Meade Plaza, featuring the relocated 18-foot marble monument to Civil War Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade.

To their left will be the dramatic, angular East Building of the National Gallery of Art, designed by architect I. M. Pei.

The parade will continue past the Andrew Mellon Memorial Fountain, whose 54-foot wide bronze basin is the largest ever cast in the world.

Cages of Canaries

The Bushes will zip by John Marshall Park, one of five new park plazas completed since the last parade. The park connects the avenue to Judiciary Square, where cages of yellow canaries lined the walls of Ulysses S. Grant’s 1873 inaugural ball.

Next to Marshall Park’s stair-stepped garden and fountains is the gleaming, new Postmodern Canadian Embassy.

Moving up past 6th Street, the Bushes will ride past two elaborately refurbished office buildings.

Next they will see Washington’s most laughed-at monument. The Temperance Fountain, featuring entwined dolphins beneath a water crane, symbolizes the superiority of water over demon rum. It was donated to Washington by San Francisco dentist Henry Cogswell in the 1800s.

Moving along, the Bushes will pass the Federal Trade Commission and another new park, Market Square Park Navy Memorial. The park features a 100-foot-wide disk inlaid with a map of the world, fountains and a 7-foot statue titled, “Lone Sailor.” Military bands give concerts there in the summer.

Houses U.S. Constitution

Across the street, on the south side, will be the sprawling National Archives, designed by John Russell Pope, architect of the Jefferson Memorial. Built in the 1930s, its 75-foot-high exhibit hall houses the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

As much as those documents are a part of American history, Pennsylvania Avenue has been a key, colorful byway of the nation’s capital.

City planner Pierre L’Enfant--hired by George Washington to plot a capital in the 10 square miles ceded from Virginia and Maryland--envisioned Pennsylvania Avenue as a sparkling boulevard of foreign embassies with unobstructed, breath-taking views between the Capitol at one end and the White House, 14 blocks away.

But the avenue evolved differently. During the Civil War, a section of Pennsylvania Avenue at 14th Street became the city’s red-light district. The man selected to care for this area was Gen. Joseph Hooker, who distinguished himself to such an extent that ladies of the night became known as hookers.

Commissions Appointed

By the 1930s, the shops and boarding houses began to make way for a wall of Neoclassical office buildings. In the 1960s, the avenue was a hodgepodge of drab office buildings and run-down stores.

Presidents Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon appointed a series of commissions to address the problem.

But a turning point did not come until 1972, when Congress established the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corp. to supervise the refurbishing of the avenue in tandem with the private sector.

Many of the agency’s major plans have come to fruition since the last inaugural parade in 1981. (Ronald Reagan’s 1985 parade was canceled because of bitter cold weather.) Many feel the street has never looked better.

But amid the beauty of the boulevard, there is also a lingering sadness. On a normal day, the homeless roam up and down the street. One man has set up a permanent residence of sorts, a configuration of plastic and cardboard, right in front of the Old Executive Office Building, next door to the White House. His scrawled sign proclaims him to be a war veteran.

Homeless to Be Removed

On parade day, the homeless will be removed from the avenue, though police have refused to discuss their plans for how this will be done.

The Bushes, on the inaugural march, will pass between the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building on their right and the Department of Justice on their left. The chunky FBI Building may not be pretty but it’s one of Washington’s most intriguing tourist attractions, especially the display of the “10 Most Wanted” criminals list.

To spruce up the sprawling FBI building’s Pennsylvania Avenue facade, the development agency is installing panels with eight life-sized figures of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

Another new office development, 1001 Pennsylvania Ave., will pop into view next. The 785,000-square foot facility includes a central atrium and incorporates a number of old architectural facades.

Saved from Wrecking Ball

On the left is a building that dominates this area of the avenue, the Romanesque-style Old Post Office Building, whose soaring observation tower brought it the nickname “Old Tooth” and made it the tallest building in Washington. Preservation groups had to fight to save it from the wrecking ball before an enormous restoration effort turned the building into a shopping gallery and 10-story office complex.

Across the street from the Old Post Office is the Evening Star Building, built in Washington’s Beaux-Arts style to house the afternoon newspaper. Its finely detailed white marble facade is being spruced up as part of a rehabilitation project that eventually will contain 212,000 square feet of office and retail space.

Another new office complex appears next, across from the massive Federal Triangle office building complex. The Bushes then pass yet another park, renamed Freedom Plaza in 1988 in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A block long, Freedom Plaza is one of the major public spaces on the avenue and is the first of three parks spanning the next three blocks.

Just beyond Freedom Plaza, the Bushes can see a brand-new shopping, hotel and office complex, and the restored National Theater. Washington’s oldest theater, it first opened in 1835 and reopened in 1984 after a major face lift.

Lincoln Held Meetings

The next block contains Pershing Park and just beyond it, the dazzling, renovated Willard Hotel and Office Building.

Lincoln held occasional staff meetings in the Willard lobby. Franklin Pierce, Calvin Coolidge and Harry S. Truman all stayed in the hotel, where King wrote his “I Have a Dream” speech and where guest Julia Ward Howe wrote the words to the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” on hotel stationery.

Howe might have written another battle hymn if she could have looked into a crystal ball and seen the coming of the 1989 inaugural prices. The Presidential Suite, which has been rented out this week and includes a separate dining room, a grand piano, four-poster king size bed and a spa, goes for $2,300 a night.

The parade route then makes a right turn where Pennsylvania is rerouted to jut around the White House, passing the giant Treasury Building and Garfinckel’s Department Store before taking a left back onto Pennsylvania Avenue, now in front of the White House grounds.

Across the street will be Lafayette Square, a large park that has become the parking spot for protest groups a lunch spot for office workers and home to many homeless.

The parade ends just past the White House, and the Bushes then can move into their new home.